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Pic du Midi Panorama

Explanation: A surreal night skyscape, this panorama stitched from 12 photos looks to the west at an evening winter sky over Pic du Midi Observatory, Pyrenees Mountains, Planet Earth. Telescope domes and a tall communications tower inhabit the rugged foreground. On the right, lights from Tarbes, France about 35 kilometers away impinge on the designated dark sky site though, but more distant terrestrial lights seen toward the left are from cities in Spain. Stars and nebulae of the northern winter's Milky Way arc through the sky above. Known to the planet's night skygazers, the Pleiades and Hyades star clusters still hang over the western horizon near center. Captured in mid February the familiar stars of the constellation Orion are to the left and include the no longer fainting star Betelgeuse.

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Great panoramic picture. It should be interesting to compare this nightscape with the panorama profile generated by Peakfinder:
https://www.peakfinder.org/?lat=42.9369 ... 835&cfg=sm

Tunç Tezel

Can't say I ever remember Orion looking so far away!
Nice photo anyhow!

I do remember this observatory fondly because of a little known program that appeared when the series 10 OS was introduced on the mac.
For the life of me, I can't remember its name or author, but he was rather famous for creating the simulated waves in large-scale hollywood productions.
He did it as an exercise, and didn't upgrade it. So it didn't last long as the OS versions changed.
But the background was this observatory (minus the tower) and the scenery was gorgeous.

BTW - the last sentence might read better in english if it said "...no longer fading star..."

Does not the Dark Sky program mandate sodium lights? Is not the nearby light pollution attenuated or eliminated by sodium filters?

Psnarf wrote: ↑Sat Mar 07, 2020 2:54 pm Does not the Dark Sky program mandate sodium lights? Is not the nearby light pollution attenuated or eliminated by sodium filters?

A lot of that light is not so nearby. And more and more of those cities are converting to LED lighting.

Sodium filters are more likely to be used by visual observers, which isn't much of a thing at Pic du Midi. Most imaging these days involves narrowband filters, which generally mitigate the impact of a lot of light pollution sources, both low pressure gas as well as most LED lighting systems.

I was struck by my ability to recognize things... Bernard's Loop, and M42 and Orion, and to the right...Taurus, and the very noticeable M45. I wondered what they were...then zoomed in... great.
Especially notable are the red hydrogen areas.

Really great image...

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